How Censorship (and Stupidity) Will Destory the Future Economy

I was waiting patiently for the idiot at  Wyoming Subway to fix my sandwich right.  By this time I had lived in Wyoming long enough to know the people are slower, dumber, and less competent than the average American, and though a gun-lovin', no income tax, libertarian state, the people were so stupid I developed an intense hatred for them, nearly on par with my hatred for communists.  Still, at the mercy of the "Sandwhich Artist" to get my sandwich right, I sat there patiently, correcting him on my order three times.

I had noticed I had to correct Wyomingians about three times to get things right once.  My dentist rescheduled my appointment three times.  I had to call the landlord three times to get the water heater fixed.  I had to call suppliers, clients, and co-workers at my job three times before getting the information I needed.  And if it only took you twice to get what you needed from a Wyomingian that person likely graduated valedictorian from their local high school.  This is what I would term "The Wyoming 3" as it would take you three times to get anything done.

The incredibly damaging problem with "The Wyomining 3" is that it takes three times the resources and labor to get one task done no matter how grandiose or small.  And when leveraged across the state as a whole, you realize people are wasting three times the amount of time, money, and labor, that could (in theory) go to boost economic production (and the wealth of Wyomingians) by three fold.  Admittedly, this was not some key to economic success.  All people all across the world need to ask the same question for clarification.  All people all across the world are going to goof up from time to time.  But what I was seeing was arguably the main difference between a first and second world economy/country - dumb people making dumb mistakes repeatedly, thus taking twice/thrice the amount of time and economic resources to get the same amount of economic production at every level of human interaction (you know, like majoring in the liberal arts, only to have to spend the time and money to major in something worthwhile the second time).

It's been nearly 10 years since I lived in Wyoming, but unfortunately over those 10 years I have seen the "Wyoming 3" phenomenon spread to the regular population.  Wives ask their husbands a variant of a question three times, hoping to get the answer they want, when the answer remains the same.  Students are going back to college for master's degrees, worthless second bachelor degrees, or participating in some kind of "essential oils" MLM scheme to make a living (instead of learning to code).  Yes, now nearly everybody has to give the Sandwich Artist their order three times whether you're in Casper or Chattanooga.  And people are looking at their cell phones at red lights, failing to notice when the light turns green, delaying the rest of us at three times the rate.  And so, slowly, but surely our economic growth slows down, our entire economy slows down, and we descend from a first world nation to a high-level second world nation.

But the costs of the "Wyoming 3" does not stop there.  Matter of fact, it has spread to what is the largest-fastest growing sector of our economy - technology.  Specifically, social media and big tech platforms.  And as the "Wyoming 3" infects "big tech" it severely limits our future potential economic growth.  And the way it does this is in two innocuous but incredibly damaging ways

1 - Clicking the mouse, and
2 - Censorship

Joke as I might, there is more than a seed of truth to the statement that "all we're going to do in the future is log in and click mice."  As the economy has become more automated and focused on social media/digital entertainment and higher and higher percentage of our time is merely spend logging in and clicking mice.  Yes, there will still be trades.  And yes, there will always be the wait/service industry.  But if you are a white collar person an increasing percent of your labor will really boil down to logging into various accounts and clicking mice.

But what has happened because of stupidity is the number of accounts you need online to work or conduct life, the number of "usernames and passcodes" you need to remember, and the number of times you need to "log in" has increased exponentially lessening the amount of work you actually can get done.  Worse, when you throw in the infernal and incessant number of times you need to unnecessarily click on items to get to where you need to go, today's productivity has tanked and future productivity will be further restrained.  These "unnecessary items" can be anything from pop up windows, to clicking on "yes I accept your fucking cookies," to every damn company posting an unnecessary "We're here for you during COVID 19," to "no, I don't want to take your fucking survey."  They may seem small and innocuous at the time, but overtime they add up to a significant economic loss, because some stupid person infected with "The Wyoming 3" needed to let you know what they're doing to help fight off COVID 19 or was trying to fix something that was not broken.

The second, though no-less damaging way "The Wyoming 3" limits future economic growth is through censorship.

Without boring you with a long and sordid economic explanation, as we automate more and more things in the economy, a bifurcation of the labor force will occur.  You will have people who maintain the automated economy (programmers, engineers, mechanics) and essentially a service industry class that provides human services to the population that robots can't (wait staff, manicurists, hair dressers, therapists, surgeons etc.).  But among this service economy, the largest segment of it will inevitably be entertainers.  Entertainers employed through social media.  This only makes sense as with cars, food, housing, and computers being made by AI/robots, there will be less demand for skilled manual labor, but with all this extra free time people will both produce and consume increasing amounts of social media, finding both employment and entertainment in social media (which has already happened). 

Though it might be a stretch in many people's mind that social media and online entertainment will be a large and growing sector of the future economy, I predict it will.  And thus anything to limit that production will cut into future potential GDP growth.  Things like...oh...I don't know...incessantly having to click on "Yes, I accept your fucking cookies" and maybe.....censorship?  And as big tech limits who and what can create what on their platforms, we are going to seriously limit the future economic potential of the world. 

Allow me to tell you a story.

I run a fun little podcast called "Good Morning Coronachan" in addition to other podcasts I produce.  It received a significant and loyal following that I decided I would start offering merchandise with the logo on it (coffee mugs, t-shirts, etc.).  I then went to RedBubble (which I STRONGLY advise you don't) as they were highly rated as one of the best "print on demand" merch sites.  I set up an account, logged in with my username and password, uploaded a logo, and hit publish.  Everything seemed to be going fine.  I even had a couple of sales within the first 24 hours.

That was until RedBubble decided my image violated the TOS and took it down.














This was confusing to me because the image was neither pornographic nor rated R.  It was not political or controversial.  I even marked it as "mature" since it was a pinup girl in a risque outfit.  But like any other image, photo, video or podcast taken down by "big tech" there was no reason it was taken down other than some Karen, some censor, some prick didn't like it and decided to take it down.  And thus something that was already generating economic production in a mere 24 hours of it being produced, was ended because Barren Karen in the Censor Department at RedBubble was infected by "The Wyoming 3."

Though a single anecdote, when you multiply this by the hundreds of millions of people that live in the US and the thousands of decisions they make every day, each Karen at Redbubble taking down an image, each censor at YouTube taking down a video, each Sandwich Artist in Wyoming throws a couple grains of sand into the economic engine of the US.  And though no single individual censor brings the social media sector of the US economy to a screeching halt, a million cuts by a million Karens can kill this sector of the economy in due time.  And thus the hour and a half I put into setting up a simple merch account that was wasted, will be wasted 10 million-fold as millions of future micro-entrepreneurs try to do the same.

When you combine these three things:

The Wyoming 3
The Eternal and Forever Unnecessary Clicking of the Mice
and
Big Tech Censorship

you make future economic growth practically impossible.

The general population is already too slow and too stupid to get things reliably done, the right way, on time.  To get what things you can get done and produce an modicum of economic growth is further and forever hampered by companies and websites requiring you unnecessarily click on "logging out...are you sure you want to log out???  Are you really really really sure you want to log out?????" And should you be part of the growing social media sector of the economy, the literal army of censors, headed up by the Barren Karens of the world, are going to arbitrarily nix your creative contributions denying you employment, your audience entertainment, and the economy GDP.

It is already tough enough to support oneself in this world given the unnecessary hurdles society lays in front of us.  And there's nothing that can be done about the incredible stupidity of your average American.  But Big Tech can do the future economy of the world a huge favor by getting The Stick of Nazi-Censorship out of its ass and allowing people to be free to express themselves however they want.  But something tells me the Barren Karens of the world need something to do with their Political Science degree, and that trumps the free choice and entertainment of the American public.

Oh well, Enjoy the Decline!
______________________

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The Coronavirus Economic Revolution: The Incredible Upside Potential of COVID 19

I originally intended this piece to be a short book/essay that I would publish on Amazon.  Then I was reminded about humanity, the average intelligence your average human has, and just how few people are capable of independent thought and realized none of what is mentioned below will come to fruition or even be heeded.  When this Coronavirus scare is all said and done, the vast majority of you will go back to your cubicles, line up at the metered ramps, sign up for $150,000 in student loans for worthless degrees, and rejoice that you can outsource the raising of your children to the public schools.  We as a society will have learned nothing and will plug ourselves right back into The Matrix, complaining about the same ole problems we were before until we are all dead.

Thus, instead of a detailed analysis of the great and nearly unlimited economic potential, hand-holding society to reach this new and revolutionized economy, I decided to write an abbreviated post here about what the Coronavirus has exposed in our economy and society and how we can capitalize on it.  It will be a much abbreviated version with the pure intention of posterity because, once again, Americans are just too damn stupid and too damn lazy to do anything about it.

Free Education

I do not know if you want to pin point it on a certain date in a certain year, but some time in the late 90's we as a society had made education free.  Rather, I should say, made it so that education could be free, and we achieved that by creating the internet.

Once bandwidth was adequate enough to download books via PDF and lectures via MP3's (and later video), the ability to convey information (ie - education) at a near zero cost was not only feasible, but a reality.  No longer would we have to waste $1 trillion a year on buildings, parking ramps, sports facilities, desks, computer labs, and the entire infrastructure that went into our education industry, we could also eliminate 99% of teachers, admins, professors, adjuncts, and all labor from the education industry as well.  Furthermore, only a handful of the best and most elite teachers would teach in their respective subjects as why settle for the mediocre masses of millions of education majors being produced each year when one outstanding man/woman could teach millions of students in return over a youtube channel or podcast.

This would solve a bevy of problems and an immediate crisis facing society now as this would make education free.  The student loan crisis would not exist and the Millennial generation would not be panhandling for a $1.5 trillion student loan bailout.  Future generations would not be faced with taking on that same criminal level of debt as the generation before them.  The taxpayer would not be facing a huge financial liability of bailing out millions of worthless and sanctimonious liberal arts majors.  And ALL generations would be immeasurably better off financially without the albatross of student loan debt around their necks.

The only real reasons we kept the outdated business model of brick and mortar schools is in part tradition, in part not knowing any better, but the real reasons are two.  One, teachers, professors and the army of bloated managerial fat in the form of college administrators would lose their fiefdoms and have to get real jobs.  And two, American brats are raised NOT to want an education, but to want the "college experience."  It is your average spoiled brat American's birthright to go to a physical "college" for 4 years, imagine they're intellectuals or future leaders, smoke pot and get drunk, and have the taxpayer guarantee that "experience."

As it pertains to K-12 education similar and parallel egotistical incentives kept the same revolution from eliminating the now-outdated public school system.  Teachers and the teachers union would lose their jobs and once again be forced into forced into the real world economy that doesn't give a damn about their "education degree."  Parents would have to not only spend time with their children, but invest in their education, and (GASP) feed them.  And let's be further honest and point out that most parents today in the US do not have children because they love their children.  They had children because they wanted to "have children."  Not actually raise them.  And thus the real reason parents pay these now-unnecessary property taxes is to outsource their children to what is nothing more than a monstrous K-12 baby-sitting operation.

Coronavirus has exposed all this.  Now, in forcing people to learn online we can all plainly see that every teacher from the kindergarten teacher to the last professor you have in your doctoral program is completely unnecessary, overpriced, and obsolete.  But "The Great and Merciful Coronachan" has also exposed our ulterior motives in society.

We don't love our children enough to raise them.
We don't care about our education as much as we egotistically care about having the taxpayer guarantee a 4 year party.
Our teachers/professors don't care about their students as much as they do a check for part time work.
And we will all gladly continue to pay roughly $1 trillion a year to keep this facade up.

Commuting

Like education, we do not know the precise date or year that the internet achieved adequate bandwidth to allow nearly all white collar workers to work from home.  But we do know that it was about 20 years ago and thus, for the past 20 years, American bosses and managers have been unnecessarily forcing HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of us to commute everyday to work.

The incalculable toll this has taken on Americans is impossible to measure.  TRILLIONS of human hours lost stuck in traffic and stuck at metered ramps.  TRILLIONS in lost GDP as people would be allowed to get their work done faster, without the harangument of micro-managing bosses.  TRILLIONS in additional corporate profits that could have been meted out to shareholders as corporations would not be paying anywhere near the office rent expense they do today.  And the millions of strokes, heart attacks, and divorces that would have been prevented should you just allow those who could to work from home and spend time with their families, instead of in bumper to bumper traffic.

Though an accomplished author, I cannot find the words to fully encapsulate and describe my intense, eternal, and violent hatred for the baby boomers.  And the fact their managerial classes unnecessarily forced two generations of people to commute, destorying their lives in the process, is one of the main reasons for this hatred.  We could have ushered in a new and revolutionized economy that would have DRASTICALLY improved standards of living both mentally, economically, and socially had employers simply eliminated commuting when the internet allowed it to.   Instead, their petty, egomaniacal, and controlling natures forced millions of veritable slaves into hours-long commutes everyday because they simply wanted to see people suffer AND they were so stupid they couldn't understand "well if I can't see you, how do I know you're working?"

The Great and Merciful Coronachan has exposed these close-minded control freaks for the egomaniacs they are.  We all now know that we never had to commute in the first place.  We all now know that these baby boomer bosses prevented us from seeing our families grow up and have shaved decades off our life expectancies with unnecessary commutes.  It is my great and eternal hope that Gen Z, Millennials, and (their now) Gen X bosses realize just what an opportunity we have to TREMENDOUSLY improve the quality of our lives by banishing commutes from our lives forever.  But I fear in another month we'll all be lined up at the metered ramp in one month, wondering if that "trafficless month" was real or just a dream.

Affordable Housing

Another major economic revolution that could occur within a year would be the converting of now-unsed office space into residential buildings.  Without people commuting to offices they don't have to be at, hundreds of thousands of acres of office space could be converted into housing, drastically lowering housing costs.

Not only would this help the beleaguered millennials and Gen Z'ers facing egregious rental costs, it would revitalize many downtown areas as their skyscrapers would make for some prime residential real-estate.  People would no longer merely commute to downtown, but live there, ushering in a whole new era of populated, live, vibrant city centers.  City council members would no longer have to panhandle for federal grants to put a park or some crappy municipal "museum" in their city centers, hoping that revitalizes their downtowns.  They wouldn't be able to keep up with demand for bars, restaurants, cafes, clubs, and all the other ancillary businesses that comes with having a massive downtown bedroom community.

Overnight, we could drastically improve the personal budgets of nearly every American by drastically lowering the single largest item on their person budget - lodging.  And the Coronavirus has shown us that is possible today, right now, if we wish to eliminate commutes and repurpose our commercial office space.  Sadly, once again, that may just be too revolutionary for the small, petty minds that our (also obsolete) K-college education industry instilled in American society today.

Government Finances

Though I've mentioned it before and this opportunity may already be gone, there is an opportunity for the US government to drastically improve its finances.  The short version is this - as we are in a global emergency, the only real economy in this world under one currency is the US and its dollar.  And during times of crisis, there is a flight to safety.  This has not only driven demand up for the US dollar, but our main competitor to a rival global reserve currency - China/Yuan - is the cause and epicenter of this crisis.

With the dollar so strong and the US economy being the last man standing, it would make sense today to print off as much money as we need to not only bail out student loans (if you wanted to) and address the economic problems of Covid 19, but to also invest in the now-depressed stock prices of the world.  The reason we'd do this is because the productive assets of the world's corporations are really the only thing that has value.  They will continue to produce ALL economic production in the future global economy and they are on sale by about 30% off as we speak.  Once the trillions of newly minted US dollars reinflate the various markets, or investors just realize corporate assets are the only thing that is going to produce all future profits in the world, money will re-enter the stock markets at which time the government could liquidate it's positions in the world stock markets for a hefty profit, and retire potentially trillions in its national debt.

There is really nothing shameful being exposed here, say like parents outsourcing their children to teachers and teachers not really caring about their students, but this is a rare economic opportunity for the US government to capitalize on its rare-and-now-even-stronger world reserve currency position coinciding with a significant drop in asset prices.  President Trump and the American taxpayer (should they capitalize on it) have the Coronavirus to thank for that.

Will Americans Pick Up the Platinum Bar in Front of Them?

These four things:

Eliminating commutes
Free education
Drastically lower housing costs
Potentially much lower national debt

would usher in a truly new, revolutionized, and drastically improved society.  It would be on par with the agricultural and industrial revolutions in terms of how much it would advance society and it would make nearly all our economic problems go away.  But I'm afraid Americans (and the world over) are so close-minded, so vested in their obsoleted ways and industries, that we will ignore the opportunities Coronavirus has presented to us.  We will insist on having kids, not raising them as we outsource them to state-run schools.  Teachers/professors will never give up their jobs because most teachers are lazy people who never wanted to work hard in the first place.  Students/young people will never give up the on campus "college experience" for an online degree they could complete by 14 for $0, because we've brainwashed them to think that is all they have in life.  And even though the baby boomers shall pass, there is unfortunately too many myopic Gen X managerial control freaks who sadistically enjoy making people suffer through unnecessary commutes.

I have the utmost of faith that we will learn nothing from Coronavirus and with that my dream of a Post-Coronavirus world will remain precisely that - a dream.
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Good Morning Coronachan #17

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The Post-Boomer Future of Investing

The following article talks about investing.  There are no guarantees in investing.  If you follow this advice you will likely lose everything you have in life including your wife and your dog.  Consult a licensed investment professional before making any investment decision.

A good buddy of mine, Matt Baldoni, was telling me about his investment strategy.  Given the $2 trillion CARES act and latest round of money printing, he was convinced to reallocate his investment portfolio into precious metals and precious metals mining companies.  He believed the new $2 trillion in printed money (and lord knows how much when you consider the M2 money supply and other MS derivations) would lead to inflation and wanted to invest in vehicles that traditionally were hedges against inflation.

I didn't disagree with him.  I too have a position in precious metals (as well as crypto-currency) as a hedge against inflation, even economic collapse.  But I advised him to reconsider investing in the stock market if he really wanted to hedge against inflation because - bar a true economic collapse - the stock market is a natural hedge against inflation and has some other interesting traits that going forward in the post-boomer economy will make it a mandatory part of any post-boomer's retirement planning.

The most obvious reason is that the stock market (at least as we speak) is off 30% from it's peak.  This right now doesn't guarantee future positive returns, but it is much cheaper than it was before and likely (though not guaranteed) will prove to be another "dip" people in the future will lament they didn't take advantage off.  I know people like my friend see the Fed further diluting their currency and have a natural impulse to purchase precious metals, but this is like "Burger Mondays" at your local happy house where a luxury gourmet $13 burger is going for $9.  On price alone, you might want to consider throwing a couple bucks into the stock market.

But this logical reason to invest in the stock market is one of simple price, not necessarily an argument of using it as a hedge against inflation.  And here we need to understand a couple things about inflation and the nature of the stock market to see why the future of investing has changed and has huge ramifications to future generation's retirement planning.

First, what is inflation?

Most people look at the price of a gallon of milk at the grocery store or price of clothes at Wal-Mart.  They see cheap consumer goods and they think inflation is under control.  And the government's official inflation measure - the Consumer Price Index - bears this out.  Inflation has been in control (more or less) since the 1980s and we Americans have not suffered any bouts of major inflation or hyperinflation.

But this measure of inflation is folly because it fails to consider one key and important thing - the average person's personal budget.

It's very nice that the CPI includes 80,000 items in a "basket of goods" that keeps a pulse on prices in the economy.  But these are individual items, many of which people don't buy and when you consider them in the personal budget, do not account for people's largest expenses.  And the largest expenses in your average person's budget are usually:

Rent/mortgage (housing)
Health care
Tuition (if going to college or had gone to college)
Transportation (cars)

And if you're smart enough to be planning for retirement

Investments (in the form of stock prices)

The price of these things have skyrocketed and have consequently wreaked utter havoc on people's standards of living (just ask any Millennial about what they pay in rent).  And since they account for the lion's share of any person's budget, we as Americans already are and have suffered great bouts of inflation.  It's just instead of the price of a flat panel TV or a gallon of milk, it's in our car payments, health premiums, tuition bill, and rent payments that have gone up.

The question is why did the price of those things go up and not a flat panel TV or a gallon of milk. And while cheap foreign labor and a dreadfully boring discussion about "the velocity of money" addresses some of that, it's more our banking system that has caused those large and important budget items to increase more than what the CPI typically covers.

Take for example the stock market.  This is not to bring politics into the discussion, but in an attempt to fight off The Great Recession President Obama quadrupled the money supply.  We are not going to Monday morning quarterback his decision, but the fact remains he did. And while The Great Recession was indeed a horrific recession, we inevitably got out of it, things returned to normal, some would say even great as unemployment dropped below 4% under Trump's successive administration.  But what also happened is the stock market also quadrupled and housing prices tripled (depending on which areas you want to measure), which behooves the question:

Did the value of American houses really increase threefold in a decade's time?
Did the productive economic capacity of the US economy (as measured by the value of the stock market) really go up 4 times that amount in a decade???

The answer is of course not.  Economic growth didn't quadruple.  We as a people did not become 3-4 times more productive.  But we did print off 4 times more money.  And over time, that money found its way into the stock market and housing prices.

The catalyst by which this was done was our banking system.

President Obama quadrupled the money supply.  Trump I think has doubled it since.  And no matter who got this newly minted money - be it a welfare sponge single mom, a defense contractor, or a simple federal employee - it always ends up in the bank (often times direct deposit).  Banks make their money by lending out depositor's money, and they usually lend it out on items people can't afford to pay cash for.  And surprise surprise, it's those same 5 major items that have gone up in price on the average person's budget:

Housing (mortgages)
Cars (auto loans)
Tuition (student loans)
Health care (usually this is afforded through credit card spending to provide the funds for health expenses)

and

The stock market (as US companies have borrowed trillions to repurchase their shares).

Again, the value of your home didn't go up 400%
The value of your health care coverage didn't go up 400%
The quality of cars didn't increase 300%.
American companies didn't increase their future profits 4 fold.
And the value of a college degree CERTAINLY HAS NOT INCREASED 400%.

But our money supply sure has and so the price of these things increased correspondingly.

This presents all Americans a paradox about investing.  Since every politician since Nixon has increased the national debt (bar Bill Clinton) and more recently we've decided to print off trillions of dollars to finance it, it is no longer the true, underlying economic value of a house, a degree, rent, or a share of stock that drives asset prices today as much as it is how much money we're going to print.  And whereas traditionally investors would look at a company's balance sheet, a rental property's Schedule E or the starting salary of a college degree to assess whether they were worthwhile investments, these traditional metrics are almost moot.  Worse, it's not like you have a choice to "invest" in these things.  You need a place to live and are thus either compelled to buy a house or rent.  YOu need transportation and are going to be forced forever to have a car as a major expense on your personal budget.  You need to garner some kind of skill, no matter what the local university will rape you for in the price of tuition.  You need to put your money SOMEWHERE if it's going to have a shot at compounding exponentially to retire before you're 70, even if the profits the underlying investment pay is paltry.  And so what printing off money to pay for deficit spending has done to retirement is make Americans, much like Germans did in the Weimar republic, buy assets regardless of their underlying and fundamental value as merely a place for their money NOT to lose purchasing power. And we're talking purchasing power in terms of living expenses, rent, transportation, education, health insurance, etc.  Not minor and petty things like the cost of a flat panel TV or a gallon of milk.

And thus why my friend Matt Baldoni should consider at least diversifying some of his investments into the stock market.

Because unlike college tuition, health insurance, and transportation, the stock market (and one could argue housing) has an advantage over all those other things - it's the productive assets of the United States, and thus holds the future productive value of the US economy.

Most college degrees today are worthless and pay no divdends and offer no profits into the future.
Cars are a depreciating asset that most vain Americans pay top dollar for to drive while it's "new" while further crippling their personal finances.
And health insurance (though quite necessary) is to get you back to square one, not an investment that allows you to retire in a Floridian condo.

But the stock market is merely owning a share of the factories, buildings, technologies, machines, and networks that produces and is going to produce all our future economy value.  And not only a share in the future productive value of the economy, but one that is naturally hedged against inflation because a widget today will be sold at inflation-adjusted prices as a widget tomorrow, thus given stocks an inherent hedge against inflation.

This obviously doesn't mean the stock market can't collapse, corporations won't go bankrupt, or that bubbles won't occur in the future.  But it does mean that companies (or at least those you can invest in the stock market) and their underlying productive assets do at least hold future value in the fact they produce things of value (unlike say a liberal arts college) and those things are inherently hedge against inflation. And while the stock market will continue to have its ups and downs, if we triple the money supply, over the long-haul you can likely expect over time a tripling of the stock market.  Not because the stock market is a good investment.  It's not.  It's just proven in the past to be a good long term hedge against inflation.

There is no guarantee with investing in the stock market or any market for that matter.  And we could all lose all of our money tomorrow for unforeseen circumstances.  But with the government printing off money to paper over all our self-inflicted problems, that money has to go somewhere.  And since it isn't showing up in the CPI, but instead in our rents, 401k's, tuition bills, and health bills, perhaps you may want to consider diversifying some of your portfolio into stocks that both provide these things to our economy and have a natural hedge built into them against inflation.
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"The Only Thing They Have in Life is Their Politics"

This is an excerpt from the book "How Not to Become a Millennial."  It focuses on how - absent careers, economic success, family, or genuine accomplishments in life - many Millennials only have their politics to give them point, purpose, and meaning.  This phenomenon is then termed the "Millennial Political Religion" where things such as feminism, environmentalism, veganism, pacifism, and regular ole socialism become substitutes for traditional religion or other spiritual things that gave one purpose and agency in life.

The conclusion is not good because without anything else to live for in life, these Millennials (and other people who only have politics as a value in life) force their politics on the rest of society because (in short) to create something of value takes effort, sacrifice, toil and rigor, and it's much easier to lord, crusade and virtue signal your politics over society.

You can find the book, and much more interesting philosophical/political observations here.

"Politics is the Last Refuge of Scoundrels

With nothing left to live for, all one has left is their beliefs. And this is the interesting situation/paradox that at least a plurality of Millennials find themselves in today. It’s interesting because in technicality the solution would be to return to school, but this time for an employable degree or trade. But one can completely forgive the Millennials for being a little reluctant to go to college yet again.

“Yes, we know the 13 YEARS of K-12 education we forced you to take didn’t teach you any employable skills. And yes, we know that the additional 4 years of college we more-or-less forced you to take also taught you no skills AND put you into crippling levels of debt. BUT TRUST US THIS TIME! If you go back to school JUST ONE MORE TIME and get a degree in STEM, THEN you’ll get everything we promised you since the Clinton Administration!”

So even though returning to school for a legitimate degree is the correct course of action, as far as the Millennials are/were concerned there was no hope. There was nothing left to do. All hope was lost. So all they had left was the political beliefs their teachers and professors told them to have.

Unfortunately, beliefs (especially political ones) have no value and serve no purpose. They don’t put food on the table. They don’t pay the bills. They don’t prompt you to return to school and study something worthwhile. And they make you powerless to solve your own problems because they take the responsibility to do so out of your hands and outsource it to a “god,” a “government,” an “ideology,” or just plain “luck.”

Worse, the particular political belief system Millennials were programmed with has an “auto-immune” type of virus in it that prevents them from acknowledging their past mistakes and salvaging what they can of their future. Core to this is victimhood politics which is prevalent throughout most left-flavored political ideologies. So if you’re a victim and everything is out of your control and you are completely helpless to stop it, then…

It’s not your fault you majored in “Translesbian Greek Sculpture Diversity Studies.”
It’s not your fault you spent $200,000 attending an overpriced liberal arts college.
It’s not your fault you didn’t learn to code or do well at math.
It’s not your fault you spent your student loans on an expensive flat.
it’s not your fault you had 4 illegitimate children.

It’s the (fill in the blank)_________________.

1. White people’s fault
2. Male’s/patriarchy’s fault
3. My parents’ fault
4. The Corporation’s
5. CIS Gendered people’s fault
6. Republican’s fault
7. Reagan, Bush, GW, Trump’s fault
8. Christian’s fault
9. Capitalist’s fault
10. The Jew’s fault
11. The Russians
12. Aliens
13. Roving Bands of Monkeys Named “Steve’s” fault
14. Whoever your professor and teachers told you it was fault

Criticisms of leftist politics aside, this is the real damage being caused by the victimhood/AIDS like aspect of Millennial politics. The Millennial political religion is programmed completely and entirely around protecting their ego, abdicating them of responsibility, and protecting their feelings, thus making them immune to any constructive criticism. This in turn prevents them from ever identifying their problems, solving them, turning their lives around, and actually attaining success and happiness in what remains of their life. Thus, while their Millennial politics are indeed sweet-tasting lies, these lies damn them to a life of failure, financial strife, and misery.

Insanity

About the only thing worse is the consequential mental pain Millennials suffer as the sweet tasting lies of their political religions never translate to success in the real world. In their minds and according to their religious ideology, it can’t possibly be them. The problem cannot possibly lay with them. It has to be other people. And as the years pass by, with death rapidly approaching, they will become more and more desperate to achieve success as long as it does not violate their religion or place blame on them.

Some might double down and get Master’s degrees in the same worthless field (as it wasn’t the type of degree. It was that they didn’t have enough education). Some will try MLM or other get-rich-quick schemes. Some will wander in the desert of part time, non-profit work, teaching English overseas, perhaps volunteering all in the hopes of *finally* landing that law firm job they went $300k into debt for. Some will join dog rescue shelters or some other form or agency substitution. And some will white-collar-panhandle as they set up “Go Fund Me” accounts to pursue whatever bogus charity-career they create. Long as they don’t have to work, math, STEM, code, or toil. And certainly as long as they don’t have to admit they were wrong.

None of this will work since it is not based in reality, and the process will repeat itself again. Just this time with less sand in the hour glass and increasingly desperate (and doomed-to-fail) options on the table. Alas, most Millennials will die thinking they were a victim, they were oppressed, and it was never in their power to do anything about it. Many will waste billions in calories of energy hating and seething against other groups of people, ideologies, or other scapegoats they erroneously hold accountable for their mistakes. In short they will lead angry, hate-filled, jealous, unsuccessful, and ultimately confused lives. Again, I cannot think of a more tortured, miserable life.

A Generation of Ugly People

But we are not done yet tallying the pain your average Millennial has suffered or will suffer in the future. Because while the Millennial political religion has handicapped them in their professional life, like all religions it influences everything in their lives. And by “influences” I mean “completely ruins.” And by “everything,” I do mean “everything.”

Take for example physical beauty.

Today beauty is verboten by modern Millennial politics. Beauty is a social construct. It really doesn’t exist. Matter of fact, “big is beautiful,” “everyone is beautiful,” and “beauty is on the inside.” And if you disagree, or dare to hold onto those outdated traditional beauty standards, then you’re a sexist, a bigot, and you should be fired from your job. Alas, your average Millennial today gets to look at a never-ending line of morbidly obese women, Soy Boys, effeminate men, boorish women, man buns, and nose-pierced diabetes candidates. They get to look at women wearing baggy cargo pants and men with incredibly dainty and well-manicured fingers. Women who belch and can’t wait to prove how masculine they are. And men who spend more time coiffing their hair than at the gym. The sexes are an affront to the human eye that neither inspires a man to break out in song nor a woman to blush. But it does induce all of us to vomit.

Now consider the long term costs and consequences of living in a physically ugly generation. Why bother? Why get out of bed in the morning? Arguably the most important and fun thing in life is ruined! Men have no incentive to hit the gym, work hard, or become a provider because why would you want to have sex with a loud, tatted-up, obese, masculine woman? And women have no reason to stay thin, eat right, dress feminine, or be sweet because why would you want to attract some neck-bearded NEET who’s living at home with his parents? Beauty is the fuel that powers the human race as it invokes sex which inevitably prompts family formation. But without it Millennials have decayed into an amorphous, androgynous, obese, nose-pierced, tattoo-laden, physically-uninspiring generation. Thanks to their political religion, the one thing that inspired humanity in the past to sing, dance, create, innovate, build, love, and bring forth everything that was ultimately good in life has now been degraded to ”meh.” And Millennials get to sleep in this boring, tapioca bed.

Politics > Love

Also along the lines of beauty – dating, or more specifically, love. Having a physically ugly dating pool is doing nobody in the Millennial generation any favors. But do you have to make it overly-complicated with politics too?

Apparently so, because that’s what the Millennial political ideology demands of its followers.

Just like being “Lutheran” or “Catholic,” “Muslim” or “Jewish” was a vital pre-requisite to dating in the past, having the correct politics is just as vital (and stupid) today. Most Millennial women will simply not date anybody who is not a leftist. If you are not a feminist, if you liked Ronald Reagan, if you don’t believe in X, or you’re foolish enough to believe in Y, well, then you are a close-minded bigot, a sexist, a misogynist, and no woman will want to have anything to do with you.

But there is a drawback. This forces everybody to date based on politics and not whether you actually like the damn person. It puts your politics ahead of the individual. When in reality it is actually possible to meet somebody who does not share your politics and….(GASP) they’re still perfectly fine to date! This irrationality shows just how fervent Millennials are about their political religion. How little else matters to them. How little else they have in life when politics is the only thing that matters even if there’s a person they’re viscerally, sexually, and chemically attracted to standing right in front of them. It’s more indicative of a cult than it is any kind of noble, intelligent ideology. And sadly, this means millions of genuinely happy love lives that could have been never were because some rat bastards dared vote Romney in 2008.

They’re Even Coming for Our Fun

And finally fun. Specifically, 1980’s movies.

You Millennials may not believe this, but there was a time in American history where movies were made to be…entertaining. I know this may shock you as now nearly all forms of movies and entertainment have to be political. But there was a time, way back in the olden days that movies were just made to be fun.

Back to the Future
Die Hard
Ghost Busters
Top Gun
The Goonies
The Princess Bride
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Midnight Run
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Caddy Shack
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Blues Brothers
Weekend at Bernies
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

All of them, and more, were originally made to entertain the audience and make them happy. They weren’t there to lecture. They weren’t there to sermonize. People already had a hard enough week at work that they didn’t need to be proselytized about “the wage gap” or “racism.” The real world sucked enough that people made havens where they could escape to, and the movies were one of them.

Not anymore. Not, at least, according to the dictates of the new Millennial religion. Because now everything

every movie
every show
every online streaming special
every comic book
every cartoon
every book
every song
every painting
every sculpture

absolutely everything has to have politics in it because, once again, that’s all the Millennials have. That’s all they have to celebrate. That’s all they have to cherish.

So now the lead role must be a feminist. The supporting actor better be a Latino, not an actual good actor. We better change the sex/race of the love interest because we don’t have enough of that sex/race combination. Are there enough gay/lesbian characters even if the plot doesn’t call for it? And let’s make sure to throw in a moral or political sermon that the audience never asked for. Alas, even Millennials’ recreation and entertainment, their actual fun in life has been ruined with their politics.

Leave No Stone Unturned

We can go on. There is no rock unturned in the life of a Millennial that is not influenced, tainted, and ultimately ruined by politics:

When you go shopping you have Target using obese models to promote obesity.
When you want a razor you have Gillette reminding you masculinity is toxic.
When you want a cup of coffee you have Starbucks “wanting to have a conversation about race.”
You can’t let your kid eat McDonald’s because you’re vegan and your political religion is more important than your child’s childhood.
You can’t just major in Engineering. You need to take all these BS diversity classes.
You can’t go to work without being forced to take “sensitivity” training.
You can’t be a stay at home parent because your career is the most important thing in life.
You can’t just be depressed or have a bad day, you have a mental illness and need drugs.
You can’t ask out a girl to a war flick because she might be a pacifist.
You can’t have Speedy Gonzales because it might offend some Latino.
You can’t just be a boring ole straight person, choose from one of these popular 48 genders.

Matter of fact, you can’t be yourself at all without first viewing yourself through the lens of race, gender, and sex as commanded by your religion.

You can’t even have passionate, rip-your-clothes-off sex without signing a god damn consent form.

Everything in Millennials’ lives,

ABSOLUTELY E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G,

has been ruined by the politics they were programmed to have.

Therefore, put yourself in the mind of a Millennial one last time. With your past wasted, your future destroyed, and no fun allowed, the only thing you’re allowed to have is whatever good things exist in the present. Unfortunately, the whole point of Millennial’s political religion is - in a very “Harrison Bergeron” like way - to lower standards so low that nobody feels bad about themselves, nor sees themselves for the failures they are. Consequently, also in a very Harrison Bergeron like way, this means Millennials can’t enjoy anything good, beautiful, or excellent in their lives.

No success, no achievement, no accomplishment, no victory.

No hot spouse, no beautiful children, no successful career, no financial success, nothing superior to what others might have.

No happiness, no serenity, no peace, no calm.

Nothing beautiful, fun, enjoyable, or even forbidden.

Anything and everything is at minimum lessened, if not outright dictated, directed, measured, allowed, and judged by their cultish Orwellian political religion. And with this political religion at the core of Millennials’ beliefs, they are doomed to a life of failure, pain, misery, confusion, taxes, debt, slavery, frustration, and worst of all, mediocrity. All with salt added to this wound in the form of madness as they waste their lives failing to figure out why their lives suck so much.

You may find what the Nazis did to their human experiments evil and horrific, and you absolutely should. But at least they had the good graces to inevitably kill most of their test subjects, ending their misery. The same cannot be said for the social scientists who seemingly were perfectly fine with torturing an entire generation forever just to advance some pet theories.

Do not mock the Millennials. Pity them.

Good Morning Coronachan #14

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Your Race Has No Value

This is an excerpt from the book "How Not to Become a Millennial."

"Whatever has been said about gender can be equally said of race because it’s the exact same racket and the exact same philosophy.  Only the trait is different.  Just as there are many women who use their gender to claim victimhood status, there are many people who use their race to do the same.  And just as there are many women who falsely derive value from their gender, there are many people who falsely derive value from their race.  This is understandable because both women and minorities are heavily lobbied by various political interests to view themselves as victims, as well as place intrinsic value in their gender/race.  But since neither of these strategies/choices are based in reality, they by definition violate The Reality Principle, and are thus doomed to fail.

But more importantly, since these strategies/choices are identical, the results are going to be the exact same as women who try to leverage favor out of society using their gender.  Misery, failure, anger, and a wasted life.  But whereas the female version of this translates into “age, poverty, divorce, debt, spinsterdom, and cats,” the consequences for people who pull of the same racket with race are just as dire, though with their own cultural flair.

Take for example education.

Just as Women’s Studies is a bogus field solely created to pander to women whose only value is their gender, various “Cultural Studies” degrees are created to pander to race just the same. 

“African-American Studies”
“Chicano-American Studies”
“Middle Eastern Studies”
“Asian American Studies,”
Etc.

All of these fields are just as bogus and just as worthless. 

However, there is an added “Uncle Tom” sort of hypocrisy to these degrees.  Most of these degrees presumably are intended to be of benefit and help to the various types of races they study.  Chicano American studies programs would logically be of benefit to Latinos and Chicanos.  Asian American studies should do the same, but for Asians.  And African American studies should do the same for blacks.

But do they really?

Like a Women’s Studies degree these degrees only harm those who major in them.  They have absolutely no economic or employment value.  They actually deter people from hiring you in that you are more prone to file a lawsuit or complain.  And like any other degree they will at least set you back $75,000 and four years of your youth.  But the real betrayal comes from the people who sold you these degrees.  The professors themselves who are presumably of your same race and by the definition of the degree should have your best interests at heart.  In reality these professors are just hucksters selling you a worthless piece of paper for that $75,000 + four years of your life.  If any “African American Studies” or “Latino American Studies” professor was honest they would warn you never to get a degree in such worthless fields and instead major in Accounting or Actuarial Science.  Perhaps studying these fields for free at your local library or online.  But they would never recommend you blow $75,000 on such crap.  Still, these professors value their own financial advancement over your best interests and, thusly, have no problem capitalizing off of your delusion that race has value.

Another example is race being used by Corporate America as a brand name.

An amazing amount of infrastructure has gone into programming Millennials with their political religion.  But within that overarching political religion there are sub-religions tailored to individual groups.  Women have their feminism and women’s empowerment.  Environmentalists have their environmentalism.  Health nuts have their organic and fair trade foods.  And races have their racial justice/political causes.  And if you think about it the schools, colleges, government, and certainly the democrat party have spent trillions over the decades making sure you have these political ideologies, even identities. 

But don’t think Corporate America hasn’t noticed.

Just as the federal government spent trillions building the US interstate system, we have also spent trillions establishing a quasi-national political religion of socialism, feminism, pacifism, environmentalism, social justice, organic/free trade, etc.  And just as corporations take advantage of the US interstate system to transport and sell their goods, they are also taking advantage of that political infrastructure the Millennials have been programmed with.  And so instead of selling you on the merits of a product like its price or its quality, Corporate America instead panders to the identity politics/religion you’ve been programmed to have because it gives you false value.

Thus, when you sell a woman’s razor, you don’t just sell a razor.  You explain how it’s going to cure women’s cancer and attach a pink ribbon to it…and charge an extra $3 over the men’s razor.

When you sell a cup of coffee, you don’t just give people their morning cup of Joe.  You write “let’s have a conversation about race” on it like Starbucks did to show you how “woke” and “down with the cause” the multi-billion dollar company is.

Target doesn’t give one flying shit about fat women. But they do care about the billions of dollars they have in their pockets.  Thus why you see nothing but plus-size models in their advertisements.

And Nike is “totally down with the struggle” as it has hired Colin Kapernick to be its new spokesmodel for their Air Force 1 shoes.  Showing minority young men they understand you.  They’re with you….just as long as you spend the $155.99 to buy their shoes.

This disgusting level of corporate virtue signaling should not only annoy everybody, but it should downright piss off minorities for its blatant pandering.  Taking issues, that are of no light matter, and issues you may care deeply about, and trivially capitalizing off of them for profit is an insult.  And when you take a look at what corporations are really trying to do via their sanctimonious virtue signaling, it’s nothing but simple marketing.  They don’t care about your cause.  They care about the money you will spend if they say they’re down with your cause.  Like your “Asian American Studies” professors, they will tell you whatever you want to hear, just as long as you give them your money.

Unfortunately, this marketing works.  Women fork over all their money to become “strong, independent, empowered, bankrupt, women” in college.  Snobby, elitist, upper income liberals pay $7 per cup of organic coffee so they can imagine they’re helping “the poor brown people” overseas and aren’t racist.  Rich white dudes buy Teslas thinking they’re saving the environment and it will consequently get them laid.  Obese people shop at Target thinking they’re promoting diabetes “body positivity.”  And young minority men must have thought they were really sticking it to the man, because the Kapernick Air Force 1’s sold out in just one day…netting Nike aka “The Man” at least a cool $1 billion in sales.  Imagine if all that money went to STEM degrees instead.

And then there is the psychological toll that obsessing about race takes.

Larry Gossett is an individual I like to highlight because so much can be learned from this man.  He is black, a current city council member of Seattle, and former member of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panthers.  And while he has a long and lengthy career in civil rights, he is most famous for claiming that spraying Seattle sidewalks free of human feces could be racist as it would remind elderly black people of when they were sprayed with firehoses in the 60’s and 70’s protests.

This man is 74 years old.  He has at most another 10 years left in him.  And his entire life has been nothing but obsessing and fretting about race.  So much so he has lost all connection with reality and now sees race and racism in everything.  And in having race infect and infest everything in his life, he has in fact ruined his life.

When he wakes up in the morning it is guaranteed he wonders if adding cream to his coffee doesn’t have some racial undertones of white men mixing races with black women.

When talking about the physics of “black holes” he probably actually thinks there’s an element of racism in the vernacular. 

The word “niggardly” perhaps angers him greatly even though it has nothing to do with race.

And one truly wonders while his kids were opening Christmas gifts or he was having a romantic dinner with his wife if he let his obsession with race take away from those precious experiences with drifting thoughts of racism.

This isn’t to say that you should tolerate genuine racism or true injustice.  Nor is it to say you shouldn’t work towards the ideal of a racism-free world.  But in putting your race first and foremost in life, you will ruin your life in the process.  All one has to do is look at your average Women’s Studies professor or your committed Baby Boomer feminist.  Do any of them look happy?  Do you not see the anger in all of their faces?  Do you not see how obsessing over their gender made their life not only miserable, but pointless?  When Mr. Gossett dies he will have suffered the same fate.  A life where he let “whitey” live rent free in his brain for 75 years.  No matter how much your teachers and professors pressure you, do not put the trait of race at the core of your being.  At least have the self-respect and wisdom to avoid the fate of Mr. Gossett.

We could go on with other examples, but the larger point is this - just like gender, there are corporate, political, and educational interests that want your money, your vote, and your tuition dollars.  And they will gladly lie to you based on your race to get those things, even if it destroys your life.  Big Education will gladly sell you $200,000 in debt for a master’s degree in a field that has no value.  Corporations will placate you and tell you whatever you want to hear about how oppressed you are and that they’re so pro-diversity it hurts…as long as you spend the $29.95 on their “Diversity Awareness Special Edition Blender.”  And the democrat party has absolutely no problems enslaving entire races of Americans through victimhood politics, keeping them dead last in society, as long as you give them your vote in exchange for them to tell you “it’s somebody else’s fault.”

Therefore, young people of any race need to ask the same two questions women needed to ask themselves.  One philosophical, the other practical.

Philosophically, does your race have any intrinsic value?  Does the color of your skin mean anything?  Additionally, does your race determine your destination?  Are you pigeonholed in life because of the color of your parents?  Or would you like to be judged by the caliber of your character and your abilities?  Would you like your actions, not your traits, to determine your success and destination in life?

And practically, where has pursuing race either as a value or a racket gotten people in the past?  Unless you’re a professional huckster like Jesse Jackson or a rich politician like Barack Obama, your rank and file minority individual cannot make a living at “race.”  You’re much better off becoming an engineer, a doctor, or an accountant.  And even if you were to have a modicum of success making a profession in “race,” it’s likely to consume you like Mr. Gossett, ruining your life in the process.

Life’s too short to piss it away on obsessing about your plumbing or your melanin levels.  It’s too short to utter the words “as a Native-American female I just feel that…” Do not let your race, your gender, or any other trait limit your life.  View yourself as an individual."
______________________

Check out the book below!

How Not To Become a Millennial